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Global Poker is a legal online poker site featuring the same ‘sweepstakes’ model used by the likes of Stake,us, Clubs Poker, and others. First launched way back in 2016, Global Poker holds a Malta license and belongs to VGW Holdings, the operator behind the ultra-popular Chumba Casino and LuckyLand Slots. With 250,000+ active players, too, it’s safe to say the site is a major force in the online poker space, but how does it work and is it actually as legit as it seems? We’ll unpack all of that for you right here. 

How Global Poker Works

If you’ve yet to get hands-on with Global Poker before, it’s a social poker site that lets you play Texas Hold’em, Hi-Lo, and other variations of poker using virtual coins instead of actual cash. These are called ⛁ Gold Coins and ⛁ Sweeps Coins. If you want free-to-play poker fun with no pressure involved, use GCs, or if you want to potentially redeem prizes like cash transfers and gift cards, FreakingGaming.com advises players to use SCs. 

In a nutshell, the GCs are purely for entertainment purposes, whereas SCs are for the competitive prize-chasing players. When a player is then able to collect enough Sweeps Coins by playing across different tables and winning tournaments, those particular coins can be redeemed for prizes via the ‘Prizeout’ part of the site. The minimum redemption threshold for gift cards starts at 50 SC, so once you’ve collected 50 SC or higher, you can start redeeming those all-important rewards. 

Let’s say you select Caribbean Poker on Global Poker, where you play against the House rather than other players. After the game, you’ve bagged 250 Sweeps Coins and want to redeem some prizes. This is the equivalent of $250, so you might redeem a $100 cash transfer to your bank account and then three $50 gift cards, or something along those lines (you don’t even have to redeem any prizes at all if you don’t want to and can instead focus on growing your coin collecting and using it to place bigger bets in future games). 

Games, Tournaments, and Special Promotions

If you take a look through the Global Poker site as a new user, what you’re going to find is a wide selection of different games, tournaments, and special ‘Promotions’ to take part in, much like classic poker room sites. 

With Global Poker, you can pick from Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Crazy Pineapple, and much more, where there are always plenty of games and tables for you to join. 

Thrown on top are jackpot slots, blackjack, instant win games, and even scratchcards for members. But there’s no doubting here that it’s almost exclusively meant for poker fanatics. 

When it comes to the tournaments, there are the popular open-entry ‘GP Championship’ events for players to enter, made up of the Rattlesnake Open, Grizzly Games, The Goat, and Eagle Cup, all of which offer big prize pool (the Eagle Cup IX, back from October 20 to November 9 later this year, has a total of 1,287,000,000 GC and 2,178,000 SC in potential prizes). 

Then you have special promotions to engage with, including The Goat VIII, The Hydra, Gold Digger, and Bad Beat Jackpot, which again offer players the chance to win big bags of coins.

For example, the extremely unique Bad Beat Jackpot promotion makes it so that players who lose despite having strong hands can possibly get them coins back each month, with the top 5 worst beats on each leaderboard landing shares of at least 100,000 SCs and 1 million GCs each month. 

Plus, Global Poker’s exciting leaderboards create a competitive environment where there’s always something to play and compete for, no matter which variation of poker you’re playing on the site. 

Simply put, there’s almost an unlimited range of things for you to be doing on Global Poker, whether it’s taking part in private games against friends, entering no-buy-in tournaments, or preparing for the frequent GP Championships that happen throughout the year. 

So, Is It Legit? 

Global Poker is, indeed, a completely legitimate sweepstakes poker platform, both from an online poker perspective and security standpoint. 

The site is owned and operated by VGW Limited, a company strongly regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority, meaning players never have to worry about scams, payout refusals, or anything similar that often gets associated with scam poker sites. 

And the prizes are legit, too, as players who collect enough Sweeps Coins by playing enough games and winning tournaments can then redeem those coins for all kinds of prizes, including gift cards and cash transfers, providing they meet the minimum redemption requirement. 

When compared to other popular online poker sites like GGPoker, the only major difference with Global Poker is that you’ll be betting either Gold Coins or Sweeps Coins at tables rather than dollars or your country’s native currency, which might take you a little while to get used to. 

Keep in mind that just because you’re playing with virtual coins, doesn’t mean you can’t technically win cash either, as all you have to do is collect the required number of SCs and exchange them for cash rewards, like 100 SCs for a $100 cash transfer. 

Global Poker is Legal in Most of the United States 

In case you haven’t heard, a growing number of states in the US have been cracking down on sweepstake-style casino and gaming sites recently, including New York and California. On top of this, Washington, Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, and Maine have also banned or heavily restricted dual-currency sweepstakes gambling sites, making it so that players within these states can no longer access Global Poker.  

The good news is that if you live in any other state not including those just mentioned, you’re good to go. Global Poker did recently increase its minimum player age to 21, though, so if you’re aged under 21 you currently won’t be able to sign up with the site or compete for prizes. Also, in order to successfully verify your account upon sign up, you’ll need to verify your real life identity and residential address, otherwise your account won’t be accessible. 

Verdict

If you were unsure before, now you know: Global Poker is a legit operator in the sweepstakes poker space. Not only does it give you the freedom to play for free and tighten up your poker skills using Gold Coins, but you can even throw your hat in the ring for prizes by betting Sweeps Coins as well. There’s something here for both casual and serious players, so you’ll definitely want to give this site a try if you’re itching to see what sweepstakes poker is all about and potentially win prizes.